HomeMy WebLinkAboutEmail from Yolanda Solano - Shelter Crisis in Chico Menchaca, Clarissa
From: Snyder,Ashley
Sent: Monday, September 4, 2017 7:36 PM
To: Menchaca, Clarissa
Subject: Fwd: Shelter Crisis in Chico
Begin forwarded message:
From: Yolanda Solano <ysolano7234@gmail.com>
Date: September 3, 2017 at 3:23:59 PM PDT
To: debbiepressongchico.gov, ansnyderga,buttecounty.net
Subject: Shelter Crisis in Chico
My name is Yolanda Solano-Ortmayer. I am a young 35 year old resident of Butte County. I've
spent the last 6 months of that time homeless in Chico. This particular city issue is one that is
close to my heart and of course very personal for me. This of course is to be expected.
I am your perfect classic example of a young woman who looks like she has everything going for
her. You would look at me and think to yourself what in the world is a young woman with such
potential doing on the streets homeless without any employment. I often think this to myself. I
am attractive, I am witty funloving a great conversationalist. I am positive and very capable. I
come from a great family and I have been a great student and completed an AS degree even
through Heald college. All this being said I have spent the past 6 months becoming close to the
Chico streets. I know the people I know most by face and many of them by name. I have grown
an affinity for them. There are many nights and days that I honestly feel if I could just get my
ducks in a row that one day I would be such a great speaker to my community a motivational
speaker and that I would well represent my community if I could just iron out my kinks.
Okay that being said....
I must share a bit of my story. In the Winter of 2015 after a year long relationship drew me into
this world of heavy heroin and meth use I lost my children to CPS later in Jan of 2016 my father
from Mexico came and took guardianship of my girls to take them out of the system. God bless
my family without them I would rather have died then dig myself out of the hole I was in at the
time. when my children left to mexico I lost everything I had ever truly loved and i fell in deeper
then I had before it was such a shock to me that I literally lost my mind and went into a shock
and a drug induced schizophrenia.I share this because many of the people having the trouble with
housing are people who have a similar story they have fallen into drugs and the drugs have taken
everything and left them with multitudes of emotional and behavioral problems that are not
conductive to normal function and readopting to the general population can be challenging.
Finding housing and a job when you ave no family support can be difficult.
Well a few months ago I linked into behavioral health and outpatient drug services and it has
saved my life slowly I started to regain who I was again. I cant express in words how life
changing these social services are to the lives of families.
I
Unfortunately my story is not uncommon and the county needs to really rally together to put
more emphasis on curing the people on the street and giving time and resources to developing
housing options for the homeless who like myself are literally crawling from the bottom to get
out of the situation that they have found themselves in. 1 believe in helping someone who wants
to help themselves.
to whom it may concern be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.
Yolanda solano
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